Read War Trash for Free Online Page B

mortar battery. He patted the half-filled sack of grass that had been placed on the mule's back as a saddle, and said to Commissar Pei rather proudly, "Sir, you can ride on this from now on."
    "No, I won't!" Pei 's eyes shone with determination. To our astonishment, he pulled out his pistol and shot the mule in the forehead. The animal dropped to the ground, gasping noisily while blood flowed out of its mouth and its legs stretched as if pulled by invisible ropes. With his left hand on Tigers shoulder, Commissar Pei raised his voice and announced, "Comrades, we must live or die together! I shall walk with you all the way back to our lines. Don't lose heart. We must help each other and find our way out."
    Why did he shoot the mule? Just to show his resolve to these men? Or to assure them that he wouldn't run away? Or to frighten them into obedience? I was confounded, and so was Tiger, who looked upset and hurt, but we didn't dare say a word. If only we could have stayed a little longer and cooked some mule meat before we had to leave.
    We set off for Shichang Village. Dead tired, we couldn't walk fast. The enemy didn't shell us at this time; probably they saw that we were just a bunch of wounded men and could hardly get anywhere, no immediate threat to them. When darkness deepened, we began moving faster in the direction of Shichang, at the pace of about one mile an hour. Without a map or a compass or stars in the sky, we just followed our instinct for direction. The commissar, Tiger, Dr. Wang, and I walked at the head of the first team while the other two groups marched behind us.
    Originally I had thought I would be assigned to lead a team of the wounded men, but Pei had ordered both Tiger and me to stay close to him. Perhaps he was scared too. Tiger carried on his back a leather bag containing Pei 's personal belongings. The commissar, suffering from a stomachache caused by an ulcer, pressed his fist against his belly from time to time. He told us that if we couldn't break out of the trap, we would go to the mountains and wage guerrilla war, waiting for an opportunity to return to North Korea.
    To our horror, at daybreak the two teams behind us had vanished. We couldn't see whether they had purposely quit following us, or had been captured by the enemy, or were simply too exhausted to march anymore. I guessed they might have disbanded of their own accord. Now we had about eighty men with us, most of whom had belonged to the Guards Company and the Mountain Gun Battalion. Many officers were also in this group.

     

3. THREE MONTHS OF GUERRILLA LIFE
     

 

    After a month of hiding in the daytime and trying in vain to find a rift in the enemy's encirclement, our team was reduced to thirty-four men. Whenever someone was killed or disappeared, I couldn't help but think about my promises to my mother and Julan. It seemed unlikely I would be able to make it home. But in spite of my fear and sadness, I forced myself to appear cheerful, especially in the presence of Commissar Pei, who always insisted that at all costs we must survive. Some of the remaining officers were familiar with guerrilla tactics. Our team leader, Yan Wenjin, the director of the divisional security section, had led dozens of guerrillas in both the war against the Japanese and the civil war. But we were in a foreign country now. Without the knowledge of its language, its terrain, and its people, how could we get the civilians' support that was the basis of guerrilla warfare?
    Hunger was our most pressing problem. During the day we picked wild grapes and berries on the mountain, though we dared not move about conspicuously. The wild fruits, tiny and bitter, numbed our tongues and made a greenish saliva dribble out from the corners of our mouths. Commissar Pei couldn't eat what we gathered because of his ulcer, but he encouraged us to search for fruits and herbs for ourselves.
    One morning Yan Wenjin ran over and beamed, "There's a dead horse in the woods!"
    We